Barrington Volume I Part 6

"I have no doubt some of your brother officers will take a run down to see how you get on, and, if so, I 'll send over a hamper of wine, or something of the kind, that you can manage to make him accept."

"It will not be very difficult, I opine," said the young man, laughingly.

"No, no," rejoined the other, misconstruing the drift of his words. "You have plenty of tact, Fred. You 'll do the thing with all due delicacy.

And now, good-bye. Let me hear how you fare here." And with a hearty farewell they parted.

There was none astir in the cottage but Darby as the Colonel set out to gain the high-road, where the post-horses awaited him. From Darby, however, as he went along, he gathered much of his host's former history. It was with astonishment he learned that the splendid house of Barring-ton Hall, where he had been dining with an earl a few days ago, was the old family seat of that poor innkeeper; that the n.o.ble deer-park had once acknowledged him for master. "And will again, plase G.o.d!" burst in Darby, who thirsted for an opportunity to launch out into law, and all its bright hopes and prospects.

"We have a record on trial in Trinity Term, and an argument before the twelve Judges, and the case is as plain as the nose on your honor's face; for it was ruled by Chief Baron Medge, in the great cause of 'Peter against Todd, a widow,' that a settlement couldn't be broke by an estreat."

"You are quite a lawyer, I see," said the Colonel.

"I wish I was. I 'd rather be a judge on the bench than a king on his throne."

"And yet I am beginning to suspect law may have cost your master dearly."

"It is not ten, or twenty--no, nor thirty--thousand pounds would see him through it!" said Darby, with a triumph in his tone that seemed to proclaim a very proud declaration. "There 's families would be comfortable for life with just what we spent upon special juries."

"Well, as you tell me he has no family, the injury has been all his own."

"That's true. We're the last of the ould stock," said he, sorrowfully; and little more pa.s.sed between them, till the Colonel, on parting, put a couple of guineas in his hand, and enjoined him to look after the young friend he had left behind him.

It is now my task to introduce this young gentleman to my readers.

Frederick Conyers, a cornet in his Majesty's Hussars, was the only son of a very distinguished officer, Lieutenant-General Conyers, a man who had not alone served with great reputation in the field, but held offices of high political trust in India, the country where all his life had been pa.s.sed. Holding a high station as a political resident at a native court, wielding great power, and surrounded by an undeviating homage, General Conyers saw his son growing up to manhood with everything that could foster pride and minister to self-exaltation around him. It was not alone the languor and indolence of an Eastern life that he had to dread for him, but the haughty temper and overbearing spirit so sure to come out of habits of domination in very early life.

Though he had done all that he could to educate his son, by masters brought at immense cost from Europe, the really important element of education,--the self-control and respect for other's rights,--only to be acquired by daily life and intercourse with equals, this he could not supply; and he saw, at last, that the project he had so long indulged, of keeping his son with him, must be abandoned. Perhaps the rough speech of an old comrade helped to dispel the illusion, as he asked, "Are you bringing up that boy to be a Rajah?" His first thought was to send him to one of the Universities, his great desire being that the young man should feel some ambition for public life and its distinctions. He bethought him, however, that while the youth of Oxford and Cambridge enter upon a college career, trained by all the discipline of our public schools, Fred would approach the ordeal without any such preparation whatever. Without one to exert authority over him, little accustomed to the exercise of self-restraint, the experiment was too perilous.

To place him, therefore, where, from the very nature of his position, some guidance and control would be exercised, and where by the working of that model democracy--a mess--he would be taught to repress self-sufficiency and presumption, he determined on the army, and obtained a cornetcy in a regiment commanded by one who had long served on his own staff. To most young fellows such an opening in life would have seemed all that was delightful and enjoyable. To be just twenty, gazetted to a splendid cavalry corps, with a father rich enough and generous enough to say, "Live like the men about you, and don't be afraid that your checks will come back to you," these are great aids to a very pleasant existence. Whether the enervation of that life of Oriental indulgence had now become a nature to him, or whether he had no liking for the service itself, or whether the change from a condition of almost princely state to a position of mere equality with others, chafed and irritated him, but so is it, he did not "take to" the regiment, nor the regiment to him.

Now it is a fact, and not a very agreeable fact either, that a man with a ma.s.s of n.o.ble qualities may fail to attract the kindliness and good feeling towards him which a far less worthy individual, merely by certain traits, or by the semblance of them, of a yielding, pa.s.sive nature is almost sure to acquire.

Conyers was generous, courageous, and loyal, in the most chivalrous sense of that word, to every obligation of friendship. He was eminently truthful and honorable; but he had two qualities whose baneful influence would disparage the very best of gifts. He was "imperious," and, in the phrase of his brother officers, "he never gave in." Some absurd impression had been made on him, as a child, that obstinacy and persistency were the n.o.blest of attributes, and that, having said a thing, no event or circ.u.mstance could ever occur to induce a change of opinion.

Such a quality is singularly unfitted to youth, and marvellously out of place in a regiment; hence was it that the "Rajah," as he was generally called by his comrades, had few intimates, and not one friend amongst them.

If I have dwelt somewhat lengthily on these traits, it is because their possessor is one destined to be much before us in this history. I will but chronicle one other feature. I am sorry it should be a disqualifying one. Owing in great measure, perhaps altogether, to his having been brought up in the East, where Hindoo craft and subtlety were familiarized to his mind from infancy, he was given to suspect that few things were ever done from the motives ascribed to them, and that under the open game of life was another concealed game, which was the real one. As yet, this dark and pernicious distrust had only gone the length of impressing him with a sense of his own consummate acuteness, an amount of self-satisfaction, which my reader may have seen tingeing the few words he exchanged with his Colonel before separating.

Let us see him now as he sits in a great easy-chair, his sprained ankle resting on another, in a little honeysuckle-covered arbor of the garden, a table covered with books and fresh flowers beside him, while Darby stands ready to serve him from the breakfast-table, where a very tempting meal is already spread out.

"So, then, I can't see your master, it seems," said Con-yers, half peevishly.

"Faix you can't; he's ten miles off by this. He got a letter by the post, and set out half an hour after for Kilkenny. He went to your honor's door, but seeing you was asleep he would n't wake you; 'but, Darby,' says he, 'take care of that young gentleman, and mind,' says he, 'that he wants for nothing.'"

"Very thoughtful of _him_,--very considerate indeed," said the youth; but in what precise spirit it is not easy to say.

"Who lives about here? What gentlemen's places are there, I mean?"

"There's Lord Carrackmore, and Sir Arthur G.o.dfrey, and Moore of Ballyduff, and Mrs. Powerscroft of the Grove--"

"Do any of these great folks come down here?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: 064]

Darby would like to have given a ready a.s.sent,--he would have been charmed to say that they came daily, that they made the place a continual rendezvous; but as he saw no prospect of being able to give his fiction even twenty-four hours' currency, he merely changed from one leg to the other, and, in a tone of apology, said, "Betimes they does, when the sayson is fine."

"Who are the persons who are most frequently here?"

"Those two that you saw last night,--the Major and Dr. Dill. They 're up here every second day, fishing, and eating their dinner with the master."

"Is the fishing good?"

"The best in Ireland."

"And what shooting is there,--any partridges?"

"Partridges, be gorra! You could n't see the turnips for them."

"And woodc.o.c.ks?"

"Is it woodc.o.c.ks! The sky is black with the sight of them."

"Any lions?"

"Well, maybe an odd one now and then," said Darby, half apologizing for the scarcity.

There was an ineffable expression of self-satisfaction in Conyers's face at the subtlety with which he had drawn Darby into this admission; and the delight in his own acuteness led him to offer the poor fellow a cigar, which he took with very grateful thanks.

"From what you tell me, then, I shall find this place stupid enough till I am able to be up and about, eh? Is there any one who can play chess hereabout?"

"Sure there's Miss Dinah; she's a great hand at it, they tell me."

"And who is Miss Dinah? Is she young,--is she pretty?"

Darby gave a very cautious look all around him, and then closing one eye, so as to give his face a look of intense cunning, he nodded very significantly twice.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mane that she'll never see sixty; and for the matter of beauty--"

"Oh, you have said quite enough; I 'm not curious about her looks. Now for another point. If I should want to get away from this, what other inn or hotel is there in the neighborhood?"

"There's Joe M'Cabe's, at Inistioge; but you are better where you are.

Where will you see fresh b.u.t.ter like that? and look at the cream, the spoon will stand in it. Far and near it's given up to her that n.o.body can make coffee like Miss Dinah; and when you taste them trout, you 'll tell me if they are not fit for the king."

"Everything is excellent,--could not be better; but there's a difficulty. There's a matter which to me at least makes a stay here most unpleasant. My friend tells me that he could not get his bill,--that he was accepted as a guest. Now I can't permit this--"

"There it is, now," said Darby, approaching the table, and dropping his voice to a confidential whisper. "That's the master's way. If he gets a stranger to sit down with him to dinner or supper, he may eat and drink as long as he plases, and sorra sixpence he'll pay; and it's that same ruins us, nothing else, for it's then he 'll call for the best sherry, and that ould Maderia that's worth a guinea a bottle. What's the use, after all, of me inflaming the bill of the next traveller, and putting down everything maybe double? And worse than all," continued he, in a tone of horror, "let him only hear any one complain about his bill or saying, 'What's this?' or 'I didn't get that,' out he'll come, as mighty and as grand as the Lord-Liftinint, and say, 'I 'm sorry, sir, that we failed to make this place agreeable to you. Will you do me the favor not to mind the bill at all?' and with that he'd tear it up in little bits and walk away."

"To me that would only be additional offence. I 'd not endure it."